chainofbradley wrote:Today has been fucking mental. Did anybody catch that 1800btc sell order on bitfinex? Looks like that's what started the slaughter. Anybody trade it?

I didn't see that but if that sold when it was over 11k that's almost a 20 million dollar transaction.

Imagine being someone who had like 100 btc and cashed out back in February when it first hit 1000 thinking there's no way it would get higher and now less than a year later realizing you were that close to being a millionaire. 100k is still life changing money to 95% of us, but that's gotta be heavy to think about.

supposedly theres a backlog of processes going on right now, some analysts suspects its from all the traders trading their btc from their personal wallets to an exchange to sell off.i expected a lot of people to be selling when it hit 10k but im looking to get into eth during this dip

So how much of a pain are the tax aspects of crypto trading? Everyone on ethtrader is obviously all about HODL, but I've seen a good amount of people talking about not selling just to avoid the tax paperwork. I got a good friend of mine to buy some ETH and LTC, but now he's caught up in daytrading every little dip and I wonder if that's going to be more trouble than it's worth for him.

It's cool that Eth has stabilized around 460 instead of dropping off a table again. I still think it'll gradually rise and settle around 500 by the end of the month. Hopefully this is the calm before another big bull run early next year.

Bitcoin is in another stratosphere. It's up another 10% from last week and logic would suggest there's no way this growth is sustainable, but that's what people were saying when it hit 1k last January. It's madness.

alchemist wrote:So how much of a pain are the tax aspects of crypto trading? Everyone on ethtrader is obviously all about HODL, but I've seen a good amount of people talking about not selling just to avoid the tax paperwork. I got a good friend of mine to buy some ETH and LTC, but now he's caught up in daytrading every little dip and I wonder if that's going to be more trouble than it's worth for him.

the irs is hounding coinbase for data on users that have traded more than 20k anually apart from that i lnow youre supposed to file your gains

how is your friend day trading because i know coinbase sets a weekly limit to buy and sell. i wanted to try doing this with my savings but reddit told me its not worth it and to just hodl

To answer the tax question, I believe you have to report it the same way you'd report any capital gains. I think if you hold it for a certain amount of time it's taxed at a lower rate. Honestly though, I'm not sure what that rate is or how it works.

i like coinbase because it's sort of required that it be the most secure wallet at the moment, but between their transaction times and their obviously biased market report, i'm just about done with them.

BTC is in another galaxy right now. It just continues to defy logic or reason. I've been afraid Eth was gonna tank for a bit so I'm not surprised, but i feel like it's only a matter of time (probably in the near future) before it crosses 500 and beyond.

To the guy asking about moving his coins from CB to another wallet, that's totally up to you. I keep all mine on Coinbase and I have two step authentication for my account. To me, it's more convenient and it gives me more peace of mind to be able to check it whenever from my desktop or my phone than if I put it in cold storage or a desktop wallet. To each their own though and I totally understand why some people prefer storage that's "off the grid".

As a dumbass I'm reading about bitcoin after investing money into it.....so I'm sure a lot of it is common knowledge, as it pertains to those who have been around crypto stuff for awhile, but it's quite fascinating - from the process to knowing that it's eventually going to cap out.

There are an estimated ~16m bitcoins in circulation. At 15k-ish a piece that's a possible 240b invested. Yow.

Edit: Just found bitinfocharts. Only took me a day to find an aggregate resource, hehe

FACEPALM wrote:sorry for being extremely ignorant but if you sell/ cash in where does that money come from? Like can the facebook guys REALLY sell out for a billion dollars ?

No, they cannot.

Cryptocurrency isn't really a "currency" at the moment because it lacks "real" liquidity, ie the ability to spend it. The volatility isn't helping that either. Right now, it's pretty much just a thing people believe has value and the price is being driven up by both real (that there is a limited number of blockchains in existence and there will be a cap of the total number) and false (that people like the winklevi and corps are hoarding them) scarcity. If it remains just a thing you can buy drugs and hitmen with but not things like videogames(valve) or food, the market will crash when someone with a stockpile gets overleveraged or just runs into trouble elsewhere in their portfolio and is forced to sell a large chunk for something that does have liquidity(ie cash). Without a real backer or regulation, that could turn your bitcoin from a civic into a pet rock(or beanie baby) before you can cash it out.

That's not to say it'll never be a currency, and the ability to spend it should theoretically make it more stable with a real world value. That'll depend on a bunch of unforeseeable actions and events, probably including things like groups of world banks agreeing to recognize it together or Amazon or Ali Baba backing it as a corporate currency.

WSJ and BBC have some interesting coverage on cc that worth looking through.

Scout wrote:Realistically, is it too late to jump in? Could I throw a grand in the market and make a significant gain right now?

I did exactly this last night lol

I'm just gonna see where it goes since it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I think a thou is a good start and it's not enough to get distraught about if it tanks in the next how ever many months or year.

FACEPALM wrote:sorry for being extremely ignorant but if you sell/ cash in where does that money come from? Like can the facebook guys REALLY sell out for a billion dollars ?

No, they cannot.

Cryptocurrency isn't really a "currency" at the moment because it lacks "real" liquidity, ie the ability to spend it. The volatility isn't helping that either. Right now, it's pretty much just a thing people believe has value and the price is being driven up by both real (that there is a limited number of blockchains in existence and there will be a cap of the total number) and false (that people like the winklevi and corps are hoarding them) scarcity. If it remains just a thing you can buy drugs and hitmen with but not things like videogames(valve) or food, the market will crash when someone with a stockpile gets overleveraged or just runs into trouble elsewhere in their portfolio and is forced to sell a large chunk for something that does have liquidity(ie cash). Without a real backer or regulation, that could turn your bitcoin from a civic into a pet rock(or beanie BAYBAYYYYYY) before you can cash it out.

That's not to say it'll never be a currency, and the ability to spend it should theoretically make it more stable with a real world value. That'll depend on a bunch of unforeseeable actions and events, probably including things like groups of world banks agreeing to recognize it together or Amazon or Ali Baba backing it as a corporate currency.

WSJ and BBC have some interesting coverage on cc that worth looking through.

That was a great question and thanks for the comprehensive response.

You seem to have a better understanding of this than me, and I understand they couldn't cash that all out at once, but what would stop them from moving their holdings into a Coinbase (Or any other exchange) wallet and exchanging it for USD on there over time? I understand this is super risky because of the volatility but in theory woudln't they be able to do it?

I know the fees would be insane, but if you're cashing out a billion dollars of something I doubt a few million in fees is much of a deterrent.

I just checked coinbase for the first time today to find out its gone up tremendously from last night. im torn between pulling out what ive made so far and just letting that keep going or just letting it all ride.